Month: Jun 2013

Ann a fascinating insight. Of course there are reasons why there should be a resonance between Gove and Gramsci, not least because of their emergence into intellectualism from humble and austere beginnings. That Gove has gone on to become an exemplar organic intellectual while Gramsci typifies the traditional mode is perhaps a function of geography and epoch – a reflection of zeitgeist in their formative years.
And you are right to allude to the embryonic counter hegemony emerging – very evident in the social media – to the prevailing incarnation of the education vs schooling hegemony which currently favours schooling in its most functional and utilitarian guise.
Much food for thought here, thank you for stimulating my grey matter.

‘Education’ is rarely out of the news these days, with a conveyor belt of reviews and reforms. Some recent social media exchanges have highlighted the distinction, made by the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci amongst others, between ‘education’ and ‘schooling’.

While we should acknowledge and welcome the fact that existing funding for adult andcommunity learning was protected in last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review given the current economic climate, it seems that most of the reported policy discussion about ‘education’ is actually about ‘schooling’. The main focus appears to be on ideology and control in primary and secondary education.

Speaking at the recent Sunday Times Festival of Education, Prof. A C Grayling suggested that, “Teaching to the exam has squeezed out education in favour of schooling” (Earlier this year,Grayling placed a bid to open a free secondary school in Camden.)

In this context, it’s interesting to remember that Education Secretary Michael Gove told the Social Market…

Like this:

The newly formed Birmingham Women’s Campaign called a protest outside the Katie Road NHS walk-in centre yesterday. Those present talked to service users and knocked on doors in thelocality explaining the issue andgetting the petition filled in.

There have recently been two denials that the walk-in centres are going to be closed. The first was from Kings Norton Councillor Steve Bedser, the city council cabinet member for health and wellbeing. The other was from Dr Andrew Coward, head of the new South Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), who stated categorically at a local NHS Listening Meeting that no NHS Walk-In Centres in South Birmingham will be closed. This was reported at a Patient Participation Group meeting for Granton Surgery (Middleton Hall Road) last week.

These welcome reassurances were heard after the big campaign in Erdington made the closure of its walk-in centre politically unacceptable. The task now…

Austerity and cutting on their own are never going to work because the jobs which are lost as a result will not be replaced unless other measures are taken in parallel.

Secondly, austerity has to be delivered quickly as was the case with Canada and Ireland where it was applied for two short years and where people were told in advance why it was being done and how growth would be engineered.

In the UK, we have had austerity delivered too slowly and without the accompanying additional measures.

A comprehensive list of necessary measures should include (inter alia):

a) Lower taxes to get money hidden offshore brought back onshore and thus…

In his spending review last week, the chancellor announced further massive cuts to the public sector and the civil service on top of the £81bn which will be cut from public spending by 2014. We have already seen a two-year pay freeze and pay cap of 1% and increased pension contributions. More than 70,000 civil service jobs have been cut, the value of pensions reduced and terms and conditions threatened.

The government has refused to talk to us, and we are demanding real negotiations.

The new spending round will cut a further £11.5 billion in 2015/16 and include: